`Silent Radio` Makes, Rides River Waves

September 26, 1990|By Charles Leroux.

``Where are they; where are they?`` Rod Zuidema wondered aloud, guiding the Dutch Dream slowly downriver toward the Michigan Avenue bridge. It was 3:30 in the afternoon, the beginning of the last of three runs he makes each weekday, and almost nobody was crossing the bridge.

``We should be catching some blue-collar workers now and any office workers who are sneaking out early. Where are they?``

He leaned out the window of the 65-foot converted houseboat and scaned the bridges, riverfront plazas and high-rise office buildings for signs of what he calls ``my public.``

If you`ve been along the riverfront downtown lately, or on the beach, you`ve probably seen Zuidema`s boat and the sign it carries, a six- by 30-foot marquee of 1,792 45-watt spotlights drawing enough generator-supplied current to light up most neighborhoods.

The bulbs spell out messages, many of them commercial, making Zuidema`s Dutch Dream (he`s half Dutch) the first and only floating advertising vehicle in the area-and a target of the ire of Beth White, executive director of Friends of the Chicago River.

White has called Zuidema`s venture ``awful`` and has argued that ``the river should be a place where people can get away from `buy this` and `buy that.` ``

At her request, the city is checking its ordinances regulating outdoor advertising to see if they apply to Zuidema. City zoning administrator Graham Grady expects an opinion from the law department soon.

The trickle of homebound commuters grew stronger as Zuidema neared his usual turnaround point beyond the Jackson Boulevard bridge. The number of people who are out to see the sign depends on the time; the attention they pay largely depends on the weather.

``When the weather`s bad,`` Zuidema said, ``this is a tough room to play.``

The show-biz metaphors come naturally to a man who regards his venture less as advertising than as ``silent radio.``

It`s temperature (from a rooftop probe), time (from the clock within the IBM computer that drives the sign), weather (``I`ve got an animated rainstorm you`ve got to see to believe``), news, ads.

This particular day, alternating with the time and temperature checks and the promos for his company, Lakeview Advertising of Crestwood, was an ad for a regatta. Zuidema has run ads for a Polish pharmaceutical house in Polish and has flashed three marriage proposals, for $50 each rather than the regular daily fee of $400. He even has run a brief editorial opposing the trading away of Bear`s quarterback Jim McMahon.

This week he`s docked, doing paperwork, pursuing leads on possible advertisers, trying to pay the bills, trying to keep running another month, after which it will be too cold in the urban river canyon.

Zuidema, 40, grew up on one of the last dairy farms in the metropolitan area. He enlisted in the army and wound up in Vietnam. From the stern of his boat, in addition to Chicago, Illinois and U.S. flags, the black MIA/POW flag flies.

After the army and some unsatisfying jobs, Zuidema found in an entrepreneur magazine the concept of advertising afloat. He talked with the businessman who was franchising the venture, but decided he could do better on his own.

He augmented his savings with a loan, bought the second-hand houseboat and began a long, expensive outfitting process. When the Dutch Dream was ready, Zuidema, whose boating experience was limited to duck-hunting trips, proudly took the wheel and promptly put her nose-first in the mud.

The original idea, tested last July, was to ply the city`s beaches from one-eighth of a mile out. Windy weather this year, however, forced him onto the river, where, he said, he has found his audience.

He pointed to the open-air restaurants along the river that are filled at lunchtime, to the bridges over which commuters cross mornings and evenings, to the office buildings where, he has been told, his sign can be seen clearly on the 40th floor.

Indeed, as the flow of people increased, more and more paused or stopped to read what Zuidema`s sign has to say. Some waved.

``I like to make people feel the sign is talking right to them,`` he said. ``It`s possible to do an instantaneous feed into the sign, although there are some bugs that I have to work out. When they are out, that`s when you can talk to the blond in the red dress.``